A Director Sounds Off, but Is Soon Reassured

Paramount said last Monday that it would exclusively support one of two technologies competing to replace standard DVDs. But the director of “Transformers” had something else in mind.

BROOKS BARNES

It used to be much easier for Hollywood to keep its employees under lockdown, so to speak. Faced with a volatile director who has trouble staying away from a microphone? Attach an attack-dog publicist to his hip and — presto! — problem solved.

But the blog age has made it more difficult, as Paramount learned the hard way last week.

Paramount said last Monday that it would exclusively support one of two technologies competing to replace standard DVDs. Instead of picking Blu-ray, Paramount chose the HD DVD format.

It was ho-hum, and back to the pool party as far as Hollywood was concerned. But the director of “Transformers,” Michael Bay, had something else in mind.

Back from a night out with some friends — three of them passionate Blu-ray owners — Mr. Bay fired up his computer and posted a cranky note on his Web site, announcing he had no intention of directing a sequel to “Transformers.”

Paramount executives held an urgent meeting via telephone. They were more bewildered than anything: Rob Moore, the studio’s global distribution chief, had given the director advance notice about the DVD deal, explaining why it made good sense.

Mr. Moore called Mr. Bay to re-explain the decision, urging him to watch the Spartan saga “300,” which Warner Brothers had just released on both HD DVD and Blu-ray.

Mr. Bay promised to post a revised comment on his blog, although he did not move as quickly as the studio would have liked.

He wrote: “At 1:30 in the morning I posted nothing good ever comes out of early AM posts, mind you I over reacted. So today I saw ‘300’ on HD, it rocks! So I think I might be back on to do ‘Transformers 2’!”

As Paramount might have posted on its blog, if it had one: Whew!

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